selves to be carried from one place to another, although the body still remained in its place. In such a state was John when he wrote the Apocalypse; and occasionally Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets; and it is then said, that they were in the spirit:"I was in the spirit (says John the revelator) on the Lord's day!" Thus we see, that the prophets were not necessarily persons of enlightened minds or regenerated states; for their intellect had no concern in their receiving or delivering the Word of God; but that it was the individual process of their own regeneration which qualified them to represent certain states of the church.

In our former discourse upon these words, it was considered, from the general doctrine of correspondences, that Jeremiah being let down by cords into the dungeon, was significative of the state from and into which the church had fallen. We may further observe that herein appears likewise to be represented the cause or order of the church's fall: For Jeremiah was cast into the dungeon by the princes, which signify the primary things of truth the dungeon was likewise that of Malchiah, the son of the king, who also applies to truth, and in a perverted sense, to falses. Cords, by which he was let down, have two significations as used in the Word: Thus in the 10th chapter of Jeremiah, it is written, "My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: My children are gone forth of me and are not." In this place, cords signify spiritual things from a celestial origin; but in Isaiah liv., where it is written, "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitation: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;" there cords signify the conjunction of good and truth. We may consider them in this passage in the former sense, and thereby implying the state from which the church fell, as the dungeon did that into which it had fallen; but they may likewise here be taken as implying conjunction ; and considering them as relating to falses, or primary truths falsified, the cords by which the prophet was let down into the dungeon may represent the conjunction which subsists between falses and evils, or that the church fell gradually by a falsification of truth into a state of thick darkness concerning both truth and good, being at length fully immersed in the sensual corporeal principle.

Such was the state of the Jewish church at that time, as represented by Jeremiah being cast into the dungeon: there

being no water therein, implied that there was no truth left whereby the church could be purified, and thereby restored; and his sinking in the mire, represented that good was likewise destroyed as well as truth, and the life consequently defiled with evils and falses. But, as before observed, the sufferings of Jeremiah, who spiritually represented the state of the Jewish church, were not permitted or inflicted upon him merely because he was a representative character; but his own hereditary evils and disposition required such trials, and such means of purification rendered him a fit subject to represent the state of the church: And the Lord foreseeing this, on appointing him to the prophetic office, says, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou comest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee: I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Wherefore, we see that neither prophets, apostles, nor martyrs; zealots nor patriots, have any thing to boast of on account of sufferings; for their own internal states have required such afflictions, and the kind and degree thereof has been such as were best calculated to subdue their predominant evils: So that the prophet might exclaim from his own experience in his Lamentations, "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens."

Let us lift up

Let us then, my brethren, whatever station of life we may be in, whether of a public or private nature, or whatever spiritual states we pass through-let us not claim any thing of merit unto ourselves, or make our boast but only in the Lord continually! If we are convinced of the depravity of our own nature of the evil basis of our own corrupt and sinful inclinations; if we feel, with the apostle, that we are "the chief of sinners," and at the same time are convinced that the Lord is a God of love, order, and purity; we shall easily perceive the necessity of any sufferings which we have passed through, in order to subdue our unruly affections, purify our corrupt principles, and reduce our natural as well as spiritual man to the order of heaven; and therefore let us humble ourselves under his rod of chastisement; and then, although we sink, like the prophet, into the mire, when we are let down into the dungeon, yet the Lord will send a friendly Ethiopian, a charitable eunuch, to elevate us from that low state.

SERMON III.

Jeremiah, xxxviii. 7-10.

Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin), Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon before he die.

IN a former discourse upon the history of the prophet Jeremiah, it has been endeavoured to shew, that it was from his own individual state that he became a proper subject to represent that of the Lord's church, and that he also underwent those persecutions and personal afflictions which we read of his suffering in the book bearing his name, although his prophetic office was the apparent or instrumental cause of all his calamities. For although bad as well as good men may, from their offices, or worldly situations, represent the highest characters, as "every king, whether in Judah, Israel, Egypt or elsewhere, might represent the Lord, for the royalty itself was representative. In like manner all priests, whether good or bad, represented the Lord, the priestly office itself being representative; for the nature and quality of the person is not at all reflected on, but the office only." Yet their personal afflictions all arise from their own individual state. Was this not the case, the example of Jeremiah would confirm the doctrine of election and predestination; as we must consider the Lord as having doomed an individual to a life of affliction in this world, merely to represent, to a people who would not attend to him, their own internal state, and this without any other plea of justice than

that which the prophet Ezekiel so strongly condemns, viz. that "the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," or what is generally called Original Sin; although the Lord has positively declared by the same prophet, "The soul that sinneth it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; but the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

In tracing the history of Jeremiah, however, we may readily distinguish the two states of the unregenerate and the regenerate mind; whence we may rationally conclude that his sufferings produced the desired effect; for it is well to observe, that external sufferings serve as a ground or plane for spiritual excitements and purifications. It is not improbable but Jeremiah might expect a literal fulfilment of the Lord's promise, recorded in the first chapter of his book as made when "the Word of the Lord first came to him ;" and we find a great deal of the unregenerate spirit of the natural man manifested at the commencement of his external sufferings. Thus in the twentieth chapter, when Pashar the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor of the house of the Lord, had heard what Jeremiah prophesied against Judah and Jerusalem, and thereupon had him scourged and put in the public stocks, the prophet did not submit very patiently, but complains, “O Lord, Thou hast deceived me and I was deceived; Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed. I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. Cursed be the day wherein I was born; let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee, making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and repented not: And let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide: Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my

mother might have been my grave. Wherefore came I out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?"-This is not the language of a regenerate mind, whether it apply to the church or to an individual. But the prophet's conduct and temper is very different in the more advanced periods of his life-in that part of his history which comes under our present consideration; and the three last chapters of his Lamentations evidently allude to his own

regenerate state as well as to that of the church, and supremely of the Lord; where judging by his own experience that the sufferings of the church would be the means of its purification, he prophetically exults, "The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever: Thy throne from generation to generation. Wherefore dost Thou forsake us so long time? Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned: Renew our days as of old."

In the two previous discourses, we accompanied the prophet "into the dungeon of Malchiah, the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison; where they let down Jeremiah with cords; in which dungeon there was no water, but mire ;" and from the general doctrine of correspondences this circumstance has been considered as significative of the state from and into which the church had fallen, viz. from that of celestialspiritual to that of being merely sensual and corporeal, and consequently into a state of vastation; for such was the state of the Jewish church and nation at that time. Totally immersed in sensuality, and ignorant of every thing of a spiritual nature, they considered themselves entitled to heaven merely from "the promise made to the fathers," or from a belief that they were the favourites of heaven, or a chosen people, without any respect to the internal principles from which their external life proceeded. Hence there was no truth left in the church by which it could be purified and thereby restored, but the life was wholly defiled with evils and falses.

To pursue, however, the instructive history of Jeremiah in his personal sufferings:-We find that the Lord did not forsake His prophet:-Although he complained, "Mine enemies chased me sore like a bird, without cause. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me;" yet "the Lord heard his voice and drew near unto him;" for our text informs us, that "when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin) Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in